johnybutts

My fitness never got off the ground this year. I want to build into a habbit of riding more now and track my progress. I'm going to do some marathon mountain bike races over the winter and train for them, then leapfrog into road. At least this is my hope.

waterrockets 

Today, still getting back into the groove after my stone and vacation. Did the first half of a ZCI™ workout, then spun around and did some intensity stuff, just to feel those sensations again.

I hit 19.9W/kg (1650W) peak in a sprint (probably lose 100W [to 18.7W/kg] for the 5" power when I download). I was surprised to see that, because I haven't done a sprint since probably October.

Then I did a 1' test, and it was much more sobering experience. Ended up at 8.2W/kg (680W), when I was really expecting to get over 700W. I had a few off-peak pedal strokes in there just from bad response to acceleration and ramping up cadence w/out shifting in time. I maybe could get to 700W, but I think it's mostly fitness.

Good to know where I sit anyway, especially with my FTP down below 3.5W/kg.

Same here.

carpediemracing 

+1

bostongarden

Holy carp, that's perty good!!

johnybutts

283W for 20 minutes... My max last year was 330W. just a 50W difference, no big deal...

waterrockets 

Thx. Clearly I need to keep working on threshold

We're in about the same situation! I was at 330 on Feb 5, the day before I went to the hospital, and now I'm in the 280s somewhere.

johnybutts

What would be your advice for me? I'm going to train for a couple more months do tour of Austin and maybe state rr. Not to be competitive, just to get out there... Then I'm going to transition to do a few marathon MTb races into mid jan. .... Then start the next season as my priority. The mtbing is just for funsies, I don't mind if I suck.

My current thought process is simply doing mucho SST during the week and long easy rides on the weekend. Substitute mtbing in when the weather permits maybe 2x per week. In nov and dec transition to some 2x20s 3x a week and progress from there into the season seeing how I feel.

rbart4506

2hrs of fast paced endurance followed by the tear down of one Powertap...

Now to find the bloody bearings locally and put this thing back together...Let's see if I screw something up

Fat Boy

CX bike today. 4 (~5 1/2') laps at VO2max type of pace ridden one at a time topped off with 3 laps without stop. Felt OK. No numbers except HR. 11:01 of zone 4 and 29:12 of zone 5.

caloso

In my case, it's been a failure on my part to do much focused neuromuscular power training. I've done a lot of 60', 20' and 5' intervals all spring but have neglected the all-out sprints.

carpediemracing 

I jump after a truck or out of a turn or even away from a light and that'll top the numbers I see in a race. If I do a "real" sprint then I see numbers higher. Otherwise my training rides are JRA or on the trainer, and neither style encourage high numbers.

Having said that my 1' best in racing is significantly higher than my 1' best in training, by something like 100w, and I wasn't pedaling for big gobs of my best race minute. It had to do with responding to moves with as much force as I had until I blew up (last lap of the 2009? Harlem Crit and I sat up with 2 turns to go as I'd totally exploded).

On the other hand my best 5' (I think), 10', and 20' came in testing, by high margins. I never race as hard as I have in testing, at least not consistently since I haven't done any races with climbs of those lengths (otherwise I wouldn't be making such efforts I don't think). Since I try and conserve, and since my sustainable efforts aren't really impressive, going on 5' breaks and such just doesn't work because I'll get caught in less than 5' if I am doing 23-24 mph in a break.

Nothing wrong with the numbers, it was just interesting to me. I know I don't train hard but doing a jump is so much fun it's not hard to do for me. A 20' effort is so draining mentally I only complete a few a year. Okay, maybe one or two, and sometimes none.

carpediemracing 

I forgot to comment on this. My first reaction is that, yep, you can always get close on peak numbers with no training. It's the 5 second, 20 second, those numbers that come with fitness. The peak doesn't change that much. It's one of those things that make me believe that training your jump is very hard. Training your sprint (20 sec effort) is easier, but trying to increase peak power a lot (like add 50%-100%) is like trying to increase FTP by a similar amount - it doesn't happen.

kensuf

Oh Hai.

Flatballer

It exists, plus mountain biking. Rock Hill, south of Charlotte. 250m nice Velodrome, coming soon is excellent bmx course, cx course, crit course, and mountain bike course.

I did pyramids Tuesday, tabata inside yesterday, tonight is track racing if the weather holds. Also did some alternator replacement intervals.

GirlAnachronism

The girl wanted to do 2 x 20s last night so I thought I'd join her, for some reason. Pre-surgery FTP was 230, so I figured I'd target 200w, given that I haven't really been able to train much beyond my sprint since February, and was off the bike quite a bit both before and after the surgery.

Somehow pulled out 225w for the first one and was on target for 230 for the second before I flatted 10' in. NBD since I'm not actually training for anything right now, but seems like a good sign that I hadn't lost as much as I'd thought.

TMonk

Nice.

I haven't been following bf as close as I have at times. How is your throat/lungs doing?

GirlAnachronism

Seems pretty good. It's been 2 weeks since the surgery so I still have a lot of pain and swelling, but when I got out of breath yesterday it seemed to be of the normal variety, not the weird total shutdown I'd had before. I expect to see the biggest difference in Vo2max efforts, but that's probably still a ways off.

Creatre

2hr's yesterday with 3min x 1min x 3min x 1min x 3min x 1min with 2min recovery between each. Um, ouch. 150 TSS.

waterrockets 

great to hear

Yep, sounds like what I'm seeing here.

I would break it up into some training cycles. I'm hoping for a 6 week cycle before Tour of Austin, and I'll be focusing on FTP for most of that. I think it's important to remember the basics: base, build, specificity. For the threshold stuff, I really try to alternate between push and pull efforts, and I also am now a big believer in endurance zone recovery (2x20s normally, but recover at 200-220W instead of coasting/spinning).

kensuf

Stadiums at 12:30, followed up by allergy shots. I may try to go do a mellow group ride this evening.

mollusk

Hipp Ride?

kensuf

Could be.

rkwaki

Is that what the kids are calling them these days?

kensuf

They worked for wiggo.

badhat

sunday 5 hours w 6000 feet of up
monday 20 min HC all out and an unplanned 30 min TT getting to the ER to meet my friend after his crash
tuesday 25miles of commuting
wed - 4 hours tempo/endurance pace work, half uphill
today - nothin. at. all.
tomorrow - TBD, if i feel recovered, i may try to get up to trail ridge for some quality altitude time, otherwise i'll rest another day
sunday - scouting mt. evans